1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an activity situation analysis apparatus, an activity situation analysis system, and an activity situation analysis method, in each of which an activity situation of a moving object in a monitoring area is observed, an activity map image that results from visualizing the activity situation of the moving body is generated based on a result of the observation, and the generated activity map image is displayed on a display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a store such as a convenience store, a plan for an improvement in store management, specifically, an improvement plan for a review of types of commodities at every salesroom, a method of displaying the commodities at every salesroom, and the like, are considered based on analysis relating to a behavior of a customer within the store, but the analysis is useful for planning to achieve an improvement in customer satisfaction or efficient store management and for improving a profit of and a sales volume of the store.
On the other hand, in the store such as the convenience store, a monitoring system, in which a situation within the store is monitored using a moving image that is captured by a camera which is installed to capture a moving image of the inside of the store, has come into wide use, and when an information processing apparatus is caused to perform the analysis relating to the behavior of the customer within the store using the moving image that is captured by the camera, a task of studying the improvement plan for store management can be efficiently performed.
As a technology that performs the analysis relating to the behavior of the person using the moving image of the camera, in the related art, a technology is known that acquires the information relating to the activity situation of the person in a monitoring area from plural moving images of the camera and generates an activity map image that results from visualizing the activity situation (refer to Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2009-134688).
With this technology, the activity map image is set to be color-coded into the shape of a contour according to the extent of person activity, and is set to be displayed in a state of being superimposed onto a layout drawing of the monitoring area. Furthermore, a technology is known in which the monitoring area is divided into multiple blocks and that detects the extent to which the person stays in every block (refer to Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2011-248836). With this technology, a value (score) indicating the extent to which the person stays is set to be output in every block.
The moving image of the monitoring area is displayed and thus the user can know an actual situation within the monitoring area. However, when screen display through which how the activity situation of the person changes can be known is performed while the moving image of the monitoring area is in the middle of being displayed in this manner, the activity situation of the person in the monitoring area can be suitably known.
Particularly, a configuration is desirable in which an activity situation within the monitoring area at an attention-receiving point in time (a current point in view in real time display) and an activity situation of the person during an attention-receiving period of time can be known at the same time.
However, in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2009-134688 and Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2011-248836, the user can know a distribution situation of the activity extent of the person within the monitoring area, that is, at which area the person is active to which extent, but there is a problem that how the activity situation of the person changes cannot be completely known without taking into consideration the desire described above, while the moving image of the monitoring area is in the middle of being displayed.
Furthermore, the activity situation of the person can be known with the activity map image, but when an analysis form of the activity situation that is to be applied when the activity map image is generated, particularly, conditions relating to the observation period of time that is to be applied when the activity information that is a source of the activity map image is generated can be set to be variously changed, the activity situation of the person in the monitoring area can be known from various points of view, thereby improving user's convenience. Because of this, a configuration is desirable in which customization that variously changes the analysis form of the activity situation according to a user need can be easily performed.